Cultpix Radio Ep.46 - Mondo, Mondo, MONDO with Kitty Lash

Cultpix Radio

Django Nudo and the Smut Peddler are joined in the studio by Kitty Lash to explore the weird and wonderful world of Mondo films. First we explore parallels between Netflix's "Clark" (2022) and "I - a Summer Lover" (1972), the former starring Bill Skarsgård while the latter his dad Stellan Skarsgård and both getting nude while sleeping with mother/daughters, as well as "The Vicious Breed" (1955).
Having argued over definitions of 'Mondo' and whether it is right to call tribes 'tribes', we dive into mondo movie maelstrom:
Pigalle Crossing of Illusions (1973) - Spy thriller about stripper smuggling microfilm, but really just an excuse to show off lots of striptease and erotic acts from Moulin Rouge and other Pigalle venues. Include cowboy acts. (In Paris? Pourquois cowboys?)
Mondo Balordo (1964) - Boris Karloff guides us through a world "throbbing and pulsing with love, from the jungle orgies of primitive tribes to sin-filled evenings of the London sophisticate." And Bedouin pimps - or maybe Lebanese.
Mondo Freudo & Mondo Bizarro (1966) - We have visionary American 'scumbags' Lee Frost and Bob Cresse to thank for adding an American twist to the Mondo genre with their Olympic International films. "Possibly the creepiest of all the Mondo films," according to Kitty, but sexy in bits depending on your fetish and "strangely erotic". Mondo Bizarro also has an opening credit sequence and music track ripe to be ripped off by Quentin Tarantino.
The Wild Wild World of Jayne Mansfield (1968) - In which we are taken on a tour of Rome and Paris by Jayne Mansfield, before she is then killed in a car accident (though not decapitated). Graphic, horrific footage from the crash. Made after her death, the film is narrated by a Mansfield sound-alike, talking about getting her bum pinched in Rome and interviewing tranny beauty queens. Her death car can be seen as part Scott Michael's Dearly Departed tours of Los Angeles.
Mondo Pazzo, aka Mondo Cane 2 (1963) - Sequel to their ground-breaking shockumentary Mondo Cane is another beautifully photographed but equally disturbing crackpot travelogue of global gross-outs and international insanity.
Kwaheri (1964) - We now go into darkest Africa. Warning from Kitty Lash: this Mondo film was the most stomach churning, with the open skull brain surgery by the African witch doctor. Cannot be unseen! Plus "wild orgies of the body and mind."
Malamondo (1964) - Early Mondo film about weird teens doing things like skiing nude, distinguished by the soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. The score does not so much support the pictures as beautiful photography seemingly there "to give visual accompaniment to a hauntingly sublime score."
Mondo Keazunt (1955) - Four Italians cross the "Green Hell" of the Amazon, with snake fights and piranhas eating a cow alive. Keazuntheit!
Don't miss the sublime Spotify Mondo score collection and we promise to have Kitty Lash back soon. We end with a brilliant Mondo radio ad.